


Is This the Place That I've Been Dreaming Of?

by Ellerigby13



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Red Dead Redemption (Video Games), Thor (Movies)
Genre: Anachronisms, BAMF Darcy Lewis, Crack, Crossovers & Fandom Fusions, F/M, Falling In Love, I have feelings, Light Angst, Magic, hosea matthews is a good dad
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-28
Updated: 2020-04-28
Packaged: 2021-03-02 05:21:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,356
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23899645
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ellerigby13/pseuds/Ellerigby13
Summary: Like everyone else who owns a gaming console, Darcy was swept up in the video game sensation that is Red Dead Redemption 2.  She just didn't expect to beliterallyswept up in it a short time later.
Relationships: Darcy Lewis/Arthur Morgan
Comments: 7
Kudos: 33
Collections: Darcy Lewis April Fool's Crack Challenge 2020





	Is This the Place That I've Been Dreaming Of?

**Author's Note:**

> Slightly angsty because how can we forget the beautiful tragic hero that Arthur Morgan is? Hopefully cracky and with enough love to fit the challenge ;)

_ Day One: Blackwater _

The woman with red-tinged blonde ringlets must have been Heidi McCourt.

This was a dull thought, compared to what she should have been processing, and yet the only one that felt comfortable traveling between Darcy’s ears, as she was tucked under Sean MacGuire’s armpit, supporting him with one hand and aiming his gun with the other. She  _ should _ have been trying to figure out what the hell magic had come to play this time, and how it had somehow transported her into Blackwater, a fictional town in her favorite fictional video game, but at present time...she was being shot at.

Over the sounds of bullets flying and the general chaos of people also trying to avoid being shot, she could make out Dutch van der Linde’s distinct bass barking orders through the dust.

“C’mon, Sean,” Darcy was whispering, hugging him closer to his side. This had to be the Blackwater heist that had kicked off the game, and if Darcy weren’t there, Sean would have been knocked out by one of the bounty hunters you were supposed to save him from later in the game and carted off. Regardless of how she’d gotten into this place or how long she was meant to be here, there was no way she was missing her chance at messing around as part of the van der Linde gang.

“Ye came outta damn near nowhere,” he slurred, his bell still a little rung from the bounty hunter’s blow earlier. “Who knew a bonny lass like you’d be my knight in shinin’ armor?”

“Let’s get you in that wagon before you start making professions of love, dude.”

The platinum blond head in the driver’s seat was far away enough that Darcy couldn’t see his face, but she was positive that it belonged to Hosea Matthews, the sexy grandpa of the gang. Pinkertons had slowly flooded Blackwater, their shots ringing out overhead, and there was a small window of opportunity to cross the cobbled road and hop into the back safely. Dutch and Arthur stood on opposite sides of the street, ducking out in intervals to fire back.

“If I get shot for you, MacGuire, I’m gonna kill you.”

Darcy steeled herself, rustling up the green paisley skirts that had appeared on her body about fifteen minutes ago, and charged the back of the wagon with her pistol up. Something like a battle screech preceded her and Sean up the road, and by the time she’d gotten to the dirty blonde woman who must be Karen Jones, mask up and arm outstretched, it was clear from the frown in Karen’s eyes that she was wondering who in  _ fresh hell _ Darcy was supposed to be, and how and why she’d swept up Sean from the shooting.

“Take my hand, ya big idiot,” Karen hissed at her sometimes boyfriend, still a bit addled from the blow to his head, and lugged him into the back. Darcy wondered if she’d tell her to fuck off, but once Sean was clear, she extended her hand again. “Well, come on, we ain’t just leavin’ you here now!”

Unsurprisingly, she was no gentler with pulling Darcy into the back of the wagon, evidenced by the loud  _ whack _ of Darcy’s elbow to the wood in front of her.

“Fuck,” she barely had time to say, before the continued crack of gunshots flared above her head. She glanced over the back...bumper? of the wagon, catching one Pinkerton in her line of sight, and shot, aiming for the leg. He crumpled, fists to the ground.

It gave her a strange feeling - some odd combination of power and guilt. He wasn’t a  _ real _ person; nobody in this world was real. But with Sean’s warm body propped on hers, Karen panting and sweating while Hosea steered the wagon and commanded the horses, the dirt rising from the earth and into her eyes and nose...whoever’s magic this was, Loki’s or an Infinity Stone’s or that quack Mysterio’s, it was startlingly strong.

She pushed up onto her elbows, and immediately found herself face-to-face with the muzzle of Karen’s gun. “While we got you here, you wanna hand me that gun and tell me who in the hell you are?”

She dropped the gun and slid it slowly across the floor with her toe, lifting her hands in surrender. Tilly Jackson in her signature sunflower yellow dress stood behind Karen, her hackles clearly raised, but judging from the way that she wasn’t brandishing a weapon at Darcy as well, she trusted Karen to take care of business. “I’m...Darcy Lewis and I come in peace.”

_ Stupid, stupid, stupid. _

“You ain’t with the bounty hunters? Or Pinkertons?” The gun was ominously close now, and she could feel the heat radiating off the barrel from its last shot. “Or O’Driscolls, ain’t you?”

“No,” she said quickly, her cheeks going hot. “No, I’m just...wrong place and wrong time, I swear.”  _ You can say that again _ . “He got knocked out - some guy hit him in the head and looked like he was ready to haul him off, so I grabbed his gun and shot the guy. In the shoulder,” she added. The picture was still fresh in her memory: some big goon with a mustache and a stupid hat, blood blooming like flowers on his coat. He’d cursed at her before she took off with Sean, shooting first and asking questions later.

“She saved his life, Karen,” Tilly said as quietly as she could over the wheels bumping on the road. “That should count for somethin’, until we can talk about it all together.”

“You have every right not to trust me. Don’t know me from...from Jane,” she improvised lamely, a sore spot in her heart aching for Jane Foster to come sweep her out of this mad situation, distract her with the latest, craziest experiment and a big bowl of spaghetti. “But I trust you to not boot me outta the back of this thing and leave me for dead with Pinkertons coming. And, if I could just make the case that this guy can’t shoot right now.” She nodded at Sean, who was bordering on cross-eyed from the concussion and in no shape to handle a gun. “You might need an extra gun to get out of this mess.”

Karen cursed again, sucking her teeth, but lowered her barrel and bent down to hand her back Sean’s gun. “Fine. But you so much as look at any of us wrong till we talk to Dutch about you, you’ll have a mess where your face used to be. Got it?”

“Loud and clear.”

A box of bullets slid across the floor to her, from Tilly, and Darcy lined them up in her pistol. One thing was for damn sure: those shooting lessons with Nat were about to pay off.

_ Day Two: Big Valley _

Whether this was a dream or not was solved after Darcy drifted off somewhere outside Strawberry. The back of the wagon had gotten considerably more cramped when Hosea veered off the main road to pick up Bill, Pearson, Swanson, and Strauss, and to camp out for the morning to give the horses a rest. Hosea pulled her aside as Karen and Sean unloaded a small parcel of firewood for today’s lunch.

“Now, my dear, I don’t know who you are, or how you came to us in our time of need, but I do know that Sean owes you his life, and anyone willing to risk theirs for our folk is decent in my book.” His kind silvery blue eyes glimmered with fondness, and Darcy felt her heart begin to swell. “But this doesn’t mean you can get by with us just on debt. I’m afraid if you’re allowed to travel with us, you’ll be asked to pull your weight. This might mean robbin’ folk in the future, destruction of public property, hell, even riding alongside rough and tumble idiots like Bill Williamson.”

He reached for a rifle from the back of the wagon, and for one fleeting moment, she worried he was going to ask her to kill someone to show her true colors. But this was Hosea - he had a kind, soft old heart, none of the maddened ruthlessness Dutch would fall into later in the game. He pressed it into her hands, surveying her through wise eyes.

“For today, it means hunting our lunch with this weary old man.”

The varmint rifle was light, and propped easily against her shoulder as she targeted jackrabbits darting across the meadow on the other side. “Little things. Not too heavy or smelly to travel with, right?” She remembered the mission later on, when Arthur and Charles hunted deer to feed the rest of the camp at Colter. That must have been where they were heading.

“Good,” Hosea answered, and lifted one weathered finger to point to her right, to a small cluster of brown, heavy-bottomed rabbits grazing on the grass. “They’re fast, so be sure you hit it at least once before they scatter. There’s a good fat one over there. Next to the rock, you see?”

“I got it.” She inhaled slowly, and exhaled as her finger found the trigger. The shot wasn’t as loud as she’d expected, but the pop caused the small group to lift their dark eyes, ears to the wind, and bolt away. She’d hit the fat one, a small, dark stain forming at the back of its neck.

Hosea clapped a hand on her shoulder. “Very good!” The pride in his voice made those warm fuzzies rise in her again, like the grandpa she’d never had. “I’ll collect that one, you find our next target. We’ll need a few of these to feed the rapscallions at camp.” With a wink, he hustled down to the fresh game and left Darcy to her own devices with the gun.

A few misses and a few lucky shots later, Hosea had the tails and ears of two jackrabbits and two squirrels scrunched in his hand, striding back to meet her with a grin stretched across his face.

“Now, you wouldn’t happen to have come from a line of professional hunters before we scooped you up, would you, Miss Lewis?”

“No, sir,” she laughed, and carried the gun at her hip as they made their way back to camp. “I was taught to protect myself, but no professional hunting on my end.”

It was scary, the way that falling into step beside him began to feel natural. Like this was a dirt path she’d walked before, with her feet, in her shoes, in her lifetime. But it wasn’t. It was a game, and sometime, be it sooner or later, she’d be sucked out of it just as quick as she’d been sucked in.

“Are you from Blackwater?” Hosea asked gently, and she could tell it was in fear of the idea the gang might have disrupted a life she’d established there, stolen her away from loving friends and family.

“Outside Philadelphia, actually.” It was the honest truth - Nat had told her once that if she ever found herself in a precarious situation, one where lies wouldn’t come easily, to tell as much of the truth that she could get away with. “I was living in New York for a while, until, uh, very recently. Kind of just found myself in Blackwater.”

“Hm. Must have been a good friend, showing you to defend yourself from the big cities.” He was too polite to say anything, she knew, but the way he surveyed her out of the corner of his eye told her he was aware of some secret she was keeping. But some things were stranger than fiction. “Well, let’s get today’s winnings to Pearson, so he can fashion us something of a meal. We’re headed north this evening, and after you eat, someone will have to take you into town to fetch some winter clothes.”

Colter. The desolate, abandoned mining town where you began the game. They’d catch up with the rest of the gang - Susan, Javier, Charles, Uncle, Mary-Beth, Molly, Lenny, John, Abigail, Jack, Dutch - with Arthur and Micah scouting ahead, before making the slow descent up the mountain. That party, or some part of it, had to contain the wounded Callander boy as well - was it Mac or Davey? - and death would set the tone for the next of their travels.

God, she’d played too much of this in between forcing Jane to sleep.

“Uh, Hosea?” she asked, once he’d passed off her game to Pearson, still out of earshot of most of the rest of them. “Your posters were all over Blackwater, I remember. Mr. van der Linde’s, too. Do you know who’s going with me to Strawberry?”

“I think our friend Arthur Morgan will be meeting up with us before we take our leave again. He’s...something of a gruff fellow, a little less unruly than when we found him, but a good man who will see to your safety.”

Oh shit. Arthur Morgan, tragic hero and handsomest outlaw in the west. It might have been stupid to feel so...hot and bothered by a very fictional, very unattainable character who, until yesterday, had wholly been a figment of her (and the rest of the Red Dead crowd’s) imagination. Darcy smiled in spite of herself, feeling her cheeks going pink. It wasn’t lost on Hosea: “Is that...alright?”

“Yeah,” she said quickly, but the blush wouldn’t fade. “Yeah, thank you.”

Karen wasn’t going to be quick to trust her, that much was evident with the side-eye she kept giving her while they ate, the fire crackling gently over Hosea’s small talk with Pearson. She couldn’t blame her; a suspicious girl shows up out of nowhere with your concussion-addled sometimes boyfriend slung over her? Darcy wouldn’t trust her much either.

Tilly, though, seemed to feel a little warmer. “This was your first time huntin’?”

Darcy shrugged, still a little pink in the ears. “I’ve shot at targets. Never anything alive, though. Before yesterday, at least.” The images still sparked into her mind whenever she had a spare moment to think about it. Sean’s gun in her hand, dark patches blossoming on fabric. She didn’t want to kill - that was never the kind of blood on her hands she was ready for - but there was no guarantee, in 1899, that the wounds she caused wouldn’t end in septic.

She had to keep reminding herself this wasn’t real. Because it felt too damn real.

Arthur arrived to their tucked away camp around three o’clock, if she had to guess. A dull brown nag carried him listlessly in with the dust, like a harbinger of doom wrapped in his soft blue work shirt. He was better looking as a real man, the soul in his eyes no longer dictated by pixels or programmers, but as wary and as full of life as the ocean in a thunderstorm.

And naturally, he was hesitant to respond to Hosea’s requests to take her to Strawberry.

“You even sure she ain’t a spy? Seems awful convenient, her to just  _ show up _ in the middle of the shootin’, jump into the wagon like she belongs here.”

“She was alone, Arthur. I could see in her eyes, she wasn’t  _ used _ to shooting up the whole damn town. Wasn’t used to shooting a damn rabbit, when I asked her to, but she did it. Now, like it or not, she saved one of our own, and I think she’s earned some protection.”

She knew she wasn’t supposed to be listening, but she smiled a little as she watched Arthur do that thing where he looked ready to keep arguing, but sighed, waved his hands around a little, giving up, and shook his head with resignation. When it became clear that beautiful murder strut was aimed her way, she dropped her gaze to her lap, pretending to fiddle with the lace on her skirt.

“Miss Lewis?” he asked gruffly, and she did her best to put on an innocent face as she lifted her eyes to meet his. The kind of innocent face Jane would see, narrow her eyes, and ask her what she’d exploded in the lab  _ this _ time. “I...I believe it is time for us to take a trip to Strawberry.”

“Okay.” It came out in a squeak, and again Darcy felt herself go pink from head to toe. She cleared her throat, shook out her hair, and took the hand that was offered to help her onto the back of his horse. “I mean. Yeah. Okay. Great. Thanks.”

He made the time to noticeably frown at her over his shoulder, and then cracked the reins on the horse beneath them.

Now, Darcy had only ridden horses as a kid, on those ponies at the fair in their miserable little merry go rounds marching in circles of their own shit. In movies, it  _ looked _ easy enough to ride side saddle and not go tumbling off the side of the horse, to be trampled under its hooves.

But the moment the nag even started moving, she felt like she was going to slide ride off its ass and to her demise.

At least, this was the excuse she gave herself to wrap her arms tight around Arthur Morgan’s middle, holding him close so she wouldn’t fall.

He straightened up, clearly surprised by her abrupt action, but there was a smile in his voice when he asked, “You, uh, alright, miss?”

“Peachy,” she replied over the thunderous clop of hooves.

“So, er, Hosea tells me you’re from Pennsylvania.” He was clunky with small talk, unsure where to leave pauses so she could answer. It was one of the cuter things about him. “You, uh, spend a lotta time in Blackwater?”

“Not really. I just kind of...found myself there. I don’t exactly know how to explain it.” She drew in a deep breath, tucking herself tighter against his broad back. “I  _ was _ in New York. I liked it a lot, working for a scientist. She barely needs me, she’s a genius, but...I guess I’m here now.”

He didn’t respond at first. She knew his introspection demonstrated itself better on a page than out loud, and for a fleeting moment, she wondered if a pencil sketch of her own face might fill his small leather journal, along with his script detailing the strange girl who’d passed in and out of the gang’s life.

Because of course she would pass through. Loki’s spell - or whoever it  _ really _ belonged to - couldn’t last forever.

“Well, I don’t know how much help we need in assistin’ with science too much, unless you know how to dress a wound or make explosives.”

“If you could get my hands on a little petrol oil and a little booze, I could make you some pretty potent bottle explosives. And...you know, I’m not  _ great _ at dressing wounds, but I could probably clean somebody up okay. Would also probably require some booze for that.”

Arthur chuckled a deep rumble, shaking his head at her as if to say that  _ anyone _ involved would need some booze for that. “I’m sure I could arrange it if we need, Miss Lewis.”

Strawberry in the game was pretty much the way she remembered it. Quaint, and small, perpetually frozen in the springtime. A few of the townsfolk waved their hellos, and Arthur escorted her off the horse and up the steps toward the general store. Darcy thought about pointing out the secret window under the porch, telling him about the moonshine operation. But right now still felt like a good time to keep her cards close to the chest.

The fitting for winter clothes was more painless than she’d expected. No uncomfortable measurements, and the owner’s anxious glances at Arthur kept him from paying Darcy too much attention. Arthur told her to stay close while he took care of a few groceries, the overcoat, winter boots, and a swath of wool that would have to be divided and sewn for the rest of the camp. She only wandered a little bit, to the corner in the back where a smattering of books collected dust on their shelf. When she made her way back to the front to help Arthur with their things, the shopkeep grabbed her by the wrist.

“Miss, I don’t deign to resortin’ to accusations,” he said to her sleeve, a thin frown lining his face. “But I’d quite like for you to put that book back where you found it.”

This was gonna earn her an earful on their ride back. “I don’t have a book.”

“Now, look, miss, I seen you pocket  _ somethin’ _ back there - ”

“Call the police, then. Have ‘em cuff me.”

The shop owner frowned, shuffling hesitantly behind his counter. “I don’t want to cause much trouble, now, but thievin’ - ”

“Is different from the unregulated moonshine operation you’ve got going on downstairs?”

He went a ruddy red color, removing his hand at last from Darcy’s wrist. He didn’t challenge her, didn’t ask how she knew or whether she was going to go to the police herself, because she very well could have, but took a step back, the lines deepening in his face, and said, “go on, then.”

Arthur clearly was not super stoked about the stunt she’d pulled, packing the horse in charged silence once they’d made their way out of the store, and not helping her up again when it was time to go.

Darcy scrambled up anyhow, and wrapped her arms tight around his waist to stay in place again. “That was...pretty dumb, huh?”

He snorted, and the horse pitched forward, taking off toward camp once more. “I ain’t terribly excited about drawin’ attention to us now we’re on the run. But I reckon I’m glad you didn’t meet Hosea any earlier.”

_ Day Three: Cattail Pond _

The day before the official start of the game, Darcy met Dutch. His eyes passed over her like glass, and while she was the tiniest bit insulted that no twenty first century makeup and no deodorant for the past three days had barely earned her a handshake, she was glad not to draw too much attention. The man had a serious wandering eye, and she was not at all ready to have the wrath of Molly O’Shea set upon her.

On the upside, after she’d helped Hosea hunt for lunch and offered Karen a hand (Karen was still wary of her with the side-eye, but accepted the help anyway) with setting up a couple of tents by the pond, Arthur had come to sit with her while she read the book from the Strawberry general store.

It was a very early edition of  _ The Awakening _ , one of Darcy’s favorites from college. Chopin’s name, printed red into the soft whites and greens of the cover, felt like it belonged under her fingertips. It would be many years before Kate Chopin gained the acclaim she deserved, many years before this book would be unearthed as a treasure of American fiction, but the words on the page popped just the same way they had in her Women’s Literature class so many years ago.

“So what was so important you needed to blackmail the shopkeep to get a copy?” Arthur asked, not lifting his gaze from the sketch he was scratching into his journal.

“Kate Chopin,” she answered simply, not looking up either. “She’s amazing.”

He sketched in silence for the next few minutes before announcing to the air that he was riding up to Colter soon to see if the old mining town could be livable for a while, at least until they had their feet under them.

Darcy wanted to ask why he was telling  _ her _ this, of all people. But when he didn’t offer up anything else, it likely meant he didn’t have much else to say for now.

“You gonna be safe?” The words felt like they’d fallen out of her mouth, her finger moving listlessly over the page in front of her. But the rest of her was glowing hot with something like embarrassment, something like...seeing her high school crush drop into the seat next to her at lunchtime.

Not like anything like that ever happened in real life, not to her.

“I shall do my best, Miss Lewis.”

When he finally rose from his seat beside her, she could’ve sworn she’d seen him smiling as he tucked his journal back into his bag.

_ Day Ten: Colter _

Karen invited Darcy to the spot next to her in front of the fire in her cabin, and offered her a shot of her last whiskey bottle. It turned out that she was friendlier when drunk, but still completely no-nonsense.

“I know you ain’t innocent as you look...none of us is innocent ‘round here. But you’re okay in my book.” She hiccuped then, her soft green eyes unfocused as they danced with the flames in front of her.

It was becoming a wise habit not to ask too many questions.

_ Day Twelve: Colter _

Darcy stood between Arthur and Lenny when they buried Davey, Mac, and Jenny. Hosea put a hand on Lenny’s shoulder, and she almost felt like reaching for Arthur’s. He hadn’t spoken much to anyone since rescuing John with Javier, but he sometimes lingered near her with his journal when he wasn’t off running errands for the camp.

Sometimes they sat in comfortable silence, and she wondered why he didn’t sit with Mary-Beth as she read books, how Darcy’s behavior was any way more interesting or special. Most of the time she was really pretending to read, thinking about how much she missed Jane, her mom, and period dramas starring Kate Winslet or Keira Knightley. If Arthur seemed to notice that she hadn’t turned a page in a while, he didn’t say anything.

Sometimes they’d go back and forth, asking each other questions but never once looking up from their work. Once Susan Grimshaw had to chase him away as Darcy worked a small bit of oil into a bloodstain on John’s wolf-bitten coat. Mary-Beth had covered her mouth with her hand as she laughed, leaning a gentle elbow into Darcy’s ribs.

Sometimes she settled in beside Sadie, fresh from the throes of the O’Driscolls, and waved Arthur over to sit by them in silence. Sadie spent the early days of her grief quiet, subdued with the absence of her husband by her side. But maybe out of apathy, maybe out of the soft need for contact, she didn’t tell either of them to get lost.

Today, after Dutch had opined the loss of three wonderful friends, three wonderful colleagues, and of course, dear Mr. Adler, Lenny swiped his tears away, turned his back, and trudged determinedly through the snow for his horse. Hosea followed.

“C’mon,” Arthur said quietly, the fingertips of his glove just brushing against her arm. “Let’s go for a walk.”

She wasn’t used to the way her boots crunched over the snowfall. She wasn’t used to 1899, to Ambarino, to this cast of characters who would die almost one-by-one with very little she could actually do about it. And maybe it was the funeral, maybe it was watching a young boy lose his first love, maybe it was spending almost two weeks surrounded by these people, but once she and Arthur had split from the group, Darcy felt her eyes beginning to prickle with tears.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered, hiding her face with her hand. “I don’t - I didn’t realize it would be like this.”

He didn’t ask her what “it” was, or why she felt this way, but walked by her side along the slowly trickling waters of Spider Gorge. If anyone asked later, she could say that this life was short and painful, and this was an awful reminder of the fleeting glances people got of one another as their ships passed in the night.

For now, Darcy let Arthur wrap an arm around her and walk up the mountain with her in silence.

_ Day Twenty: Valentine _

While Arthur, Javier, Bill, and Charles busied themselves with the call girls at the Valentine Saloon, Darcy had snuck out of camp on a free Tennessee Walker, then joined them to slide the wallets out of the pockets of the mayor, the town secretary, and the sheriff’s deputy at the poker table.

While the boys busied themselves fighting damn near the entire town, Arthur going crashing out the front window at Tommy’s hand, she picked the pockets of the knocked out, the passed out, and the ones running around like chickens with their heads chopped off. It was a good thing her cleavage had space for the small bills she stuffed in.

“Arthur!” she called, as he reared his arm backward to land a final blow to Tommy the town tough guy, lying messily in the mud. He realized himself, and dropped his fist.

“Sir - ” Thomas Downes wheezed, a moment too late, bustling over to fuss over Tommy’s bruised mug. “Please - you’ve won the fight now, shouldn’t this be enough?” Before Arthur could answer, Downes stumbled backwards, a cough wrenching out through his ribs.

“Arthur,” Darcy said softly, gripping him by the back of his shirt. The mud squelched between her fingers, and Tommy made his way to his feet, his cheek so swollen it nearly closed his eye. “He’s right. Come on, you’re...filthy.”

He searched her eyes for a moment, jaw clenched tight, and relented, turning away from Tommy and Downes to lick his wounds on the bench outside the general store. Bill, Javier, and Charles followed.

“I didn’t take you to be so interested in working girls,” she said, mostly to Charles, who bowed his head a little, the corners of his lips lifting in a bashful smile.

“We all have needs, right?”

Arthur, on the other hand, didn’t look so amused. “What was you doin’ in there? Drunk folk don’t care who walks in wearin’ a skirt, they’ll beat anybody looks worth beatin’.”

She pulled a stack of bills from inside her corset, and pressed a dollar into his hand. “Buy yourself a couple baths and then complain to me about beatings.”

None of them tried to stop her from leaving, not even when Dutch and Josiah arrived a few minutes later.

_ Day Twenty-One: Horseshoe Overlook _

The Tennessee Walker she was riding had a champagne coloring, Hosea told her, so she called him Korbel, which probably wouldn’t be a household name for many years to come, and sat with him the next sunny morning, reading her book by the crafting fire on the outskirts of camp. He was moderately tempered, and even though taming horses and getting used to them should’ve taken a lot longer, he was sweet, and let her read passages from her book to him without bother. Every so often, she threaded her fingers through his soft brown mane.

“‘I would give up the unessential; I would give my money, I would give my life for my children, but I wouldn’t give myself. I can’t make it more clear; it’s only something which I am beginning to comprehend, which is revealing itself to me,’” she recited from the page, loving Edna Pontellier more with every word. But the heavy footfall of steps told her she wasn’t alone any longer.

“That’s an awful different way of thinkin’,” Arthur said, but it wasn’t his conversation that caught her eye - it was his hands turning his hat anxiously between them.

“It’s a claiming of herself,” Darcy answered shortly, her eyes locked at the period at the end of the quote. “It’s almost like...it’s easy to die for someone else. But to live for them? That’s a whole other story.”

He took a seat at the log on the other side of the fire, keeping a respectable distance while still turning his hat over in his hands. “You reckon it’s easy to die for somebody?”

“Not for everyone. But you die for somebody else, for a cause, you get written down as a martyr, it’s over. You live for somebody else, it’s a much less noble enterprise. People don’t remember you for living for anybody else.”

The thought seemed to give him pause. He raised his eyes from the fire, setting his hat by his side. “I’m afraid I ain’t been givin’ you your due, Miss Lewis. You been nothin’ but helpful since you got to camp an’ I been...well, I been takin’ you for granted, I reckon. You pull your weight around here, and you belong here or on our excursions just as well as the rest of us. I’m sorry.”

She smiled sadly, feeling her heart sink in her chest.  _ I’m not supposed to be here at all _ , she wanted to scream at him,  _ I want to be home, I want to see my family, I want to read Harry Potter and eat Chinese food and use a goddamn laundry machine. _

Instead she said, “That’s sweet of you to say, Arthur. Thank you.”

_ Day Twenty-Seven: Horseshoe Overlook _

“I want to pay Thomas Downes’ debt,” Darcy told Strauss, her hands firmly propped on her hips.

He squinted at her from behind his little glasses, tilting his head to the side. “This is...quite unusual, Fraulein Lewis. He owes a sum of money which I am not sure you have the means to pay back.”

“How much?”

He frowned again, flipping impatiently through the leaves of his debt log. “Seventy-two dollars. Fraulein, this is a heavy sum for just one woman. I would hate for you to have to resort to...unsavory measures of earning cash.”

She rolled her eyes at his ‘concern.’ Just because she  _ had _ tits didn’t mean she had to use them. “Herr Strauss, I appreciate your...worries, but I’m happy to make money without dealing too much with the male persuasion.”

“Be that as it may, Herr Downes’s debt is due by the end of the week. This means you have four days from now to present seventy-two dollars.”

She turned on her heel under his skeptical gaze and marched through the dirt to pick some pockets, shoot some game, and rob some rich folk.

_ Day Thirty-Three: Horseshoe Overlook _

With Strauss appeased after she’d brought back an even eighty dollars, things were almost going too well. Camp was docile, Darcy hadn’t caught a tick or flea yet, and it was sweet to watch Mary-Beth sneak Kieran biscuits she’d whisked off the back of Pearson’s wagon. Every night around the campfire, Hosea asked her about her book, even though he knew she’d long since finished it, and urged Mary-Beth to borrow it sometime, when she was finished with her own books.

And Arthur sat closer to her than ever, always with the hand closest to her planted in the dirt beside him, like he was waiting for her to reach down and grab it.

If there was any prospect of being wooed by Arthur Morgan, Darcy had to quash the terror and excitement that came with it when a letter arrived for him via Susan Grimshaw.

Mary Linton was in town.

He looked like a man on a mission, flitting from one end of the camp toward his wagon, ripping the envelope open and almost tearing the letter itself into pieces with his fervor. She watched from the craft fire as his eyes skimmed the page and his face, hard with a broken heart, softened slowly but surely into the lovesick longing that he’d been through most of the game anyhow. When he set the letter into his pack and hopped onto his horse, he didn’t look back.

“You okay?” Sadie Adler asked her for the first time, appearing at Darcy’s side without a moment’s warning.

“Yeah,” Darcy said, and lifted the axe to chop the pile of firewood in front of her. She’d made it through splitting two logs before the anxiety rattling her bones lifted her gaze back to Sadie, who hadn’t moved an inch. “On second thought, you wanna go to town? I need to...get myself a pair of goddamn pants.”

She couldn’t tell if Sadie’s smile was mischievous or sympathetic or some twisted combination of both. But she said sure, and when Micah Bell’s favorite knife went missing and the women returned with trousers, Micah was the only one to mention it.

_ Day Thirty-Four: Grizzlies West and Horseshoe Overlook _

Hosea took her hunting the following day, on the lookout for the legendary white ram in the lower hills of Grizzlies West. He knew Arthur arguably better than anyone else, and while it didn’t seem like he wanted to breach the subject much without the party in question present, the fact that he knew something about what she was feeling was written all over his face.

“He’ll come around, dear,” was all he said on the matter, before passing her the scent covering lotion, and pressing forward with his rifle.

Hosea was the one who shot the ram, nicking an artery in its neck, but Darcy was the one who killed it, plunging his hunting dagger into its abdomen until the squealing and kicking stopped. As the blood gushed between her fingers, she wondered if any of this would be worth the death and the killing and the pain that she’d caused people that never lived in the first place.

While Darcy collected some firewood for an afternoon lunch of mutton, Hosea skinned and dressed the beast. “I don’t imagine Arthur Morgan is the extent of your thoughts today, though. You’re a lot smarter than that.”

She felt her blush before her smile. “Bold of you to assume things about my intelligence, Mr. Matthews.”

“I don’t need to assume, Miss Lewis. You’ve drummed up a storm in our camp, and I don’t believe it’s for the worse.” He grinned up at her from the gory affair of clearing out the intestines. “You’re the type of character it’d be deadly to underestimate. So would you like to share what troubles are on your mind?”

She sucked her lip between her teeth and watched the first flames start to lick the bottom of her kindling. “Hosea, I can’t begin to thank you for all you’ve done for me. Standing up for me, taking me in, it’s all been...it’s all happened so fast.”

He lifted a silver eyebrow. “But?”

“But I don’t belong here.” Ringlets of smoke curled around the wood, rising in wisps on their way up to the sky. “I have people waiting for me elsewhere...family. I don’t know where they are or how to get to them, but I know I need to get back. Somehow, some way. I’m sorry, I know it sounds...crazy.”

Jane, her mother, her sister, Erik, Thor, even the ridiculous Tony Stark, with his stupid band tees and his movie references from the seventies. The  _ nineteen _ -seventies.

He sighed, slicing a small slab of meat big enough for the two of them, and rested it on top of the grill stuck into the ground. “Darcy, I’m afraid that even my age doesn’t provide me all the answers. But I know you are wise beyond your years, and even in the regards you can’t share with me for your safety or sanity, you’ve earned my respect and my trust. I think you need to trust your heart and your instincts more than you are now. One foot in front of the other until you are where you need to be, with or without our motley crew.”

When he squeezed her hand, she wanted to sing the chorus of “Girls, Girls, Girls” back to him, but settled for humming it while he turned their mutton.

The two of them settled under the forestry for a little while longer, talking about her book and while he didn’t ask directly about her family, she told him all she could about Jane and Erik, the short amount of time she’d lived with her sister, and her childhood cat Peanut. He told her about finding Arthur and John as boys, about the first time he’d met Dutch, and his wife Bessie, who had very nearly gotten him out of the business.

They rode back as the afternoon dwindled into evening, and Korbel seemed to be growing accustomed to having Darcy on his back. In fairness, she felt a lot more natural about riding with pants on, not having to worry about side-saddle. Half the riders passing by tipped their hats, a few congratulating Hosea for the rest of the ram that he’d strapped to the back of his horse.

The sky was almost entirely dark by the time they got back, most of the camp huddled around the fire singing songs to pass the time. She helped Hosea deliver the ram to Pearson’s wagon to be divvied up into the next day’s stew and the skin taken to the trader for crafting. After she finished washing up by the laundry, Arthur’s boots plodded into the grass beside her, pounding in her ears almost loud enough to drown out Uncle’s terrible singing.

“Evenin’.” There were small notes of uncertainty in just that one word, further confirmed by the awkward twitch of his hands at his belt when she bothered to look up.

“Hi. You doing okay?”

He cleared his throat a little, scratching anxiously at his beard. “Hosea tell you about Mary?”

She pursed her lips, raising a shoulder in a half-shrug. “He didn’t really need to. Are you...okay? It can’t be easy, to see somebody like that after so long.”

His Adam’s apple bobbed in his throat, and he darted his eyes to the cliffside behind her before answering. “It ain’t. She and I weren’t never meant for each other, but...somethin’ about all that reminds me I’m a fool, and I worry I was foolish with you.”

Darcy dropped her gaze to the grass. “I don’t know what you mean by that.”

“I mean you always been honest with me, since I met you. And I ought to be honest with you, as well.”

She laughed under her breath. “You wouldn’t believe me if I tried to be more honest with you.”

If this confused him, he didn’t show it, taking one vulnerable step closer and reaching to fold his hand over hers. “Miss Lewis, I confess that I’ve taken a shine to you. And regardless of what my relationship has been with Mary Linton, I still…”

“Shine for me?” she grinned into the darkness.

A deep rumble of a laugh chuckled its way out of his chest. “Yes, if that’s what you’d like to call it.”

At the campfire, Javier was strumming his guitar and singing a version of La Llorona too far away to discern. The crackling of the flames in the distance felt like they framed her entire world, as Arthur leaned forward, his calloused fingers dipping below her chin to lift her lips to meet his.

His kiss tasted like tobacco and gunsmoke, the stubble of his beard tickling her gently into his arms. Arthur was unsurprisingly tentative with kissing, as if every muscle in his body wanted to ask if this was okay, if this was really what she wanted, if he could hold her closer. Her hand seemed to move of its own accord to the back of his neck, allowing her tongue to slide into the crease of his lips.

A soft sound escaped the back of his throat, something between a moan and a gasp. When Darcy pulled away, he was smiling sheepishly. “Wow.”

“Wow,” she echoed, bowing her chin down so that her forehead bumped his beard. Like all good things, this would have to end eventually. “Arthur, I...I really need to talk to you.”

_ Day Thirty-Five: Horseshoe Overlook _

Whether Arthur believed Darcy’s story by the time that dawn spread its pink fingers across the horizon, it was hard to tell. She’d exhausted herself telling it, lying tight beside him in his bed, her voice strained from speaking quietly through the night. He lay with his head propped in his hand, the other hand lazing on the curve of her hip, which was hopefully a good sign.

“So you...reckon it’s  _ magic _ keepin’ you here?” he said slowly, skeptically, and just hearing it out loud made her want to throw up.

“I know how it sounds,” she groaned, pressing the back of her hand to her brows. “I know I sound like a maniac, or a liar, or...like I’m making fun of you, but I swear on my life, Arthur, it’s the truth. I don’t know how to get back or if I’m stuck here forever, but...I want to help, if I can. Knowing what I know, knowing what’s coming before it does.”

“Yeah?” His voice came out sickly, as if he hated that he was even about to ask. “Like what?”

“Thomas Downes.” She swallowed, closing her eyes, like that would dry the tears that were coming. “I paid Thomas Downes’ debt so you wouldn’t have to go get it from him, because if you did…” Pain and embarrassment roiled in her stomach. “...he has tuberculosis. And seeing as there’s no cure for it yet, you were supposed to get it, and it was going to kill you. Made you a better person, in the end, made you appreciate your life, but it fuckin’ wrecked you. And I didn’t want to sit around and watch that happen.”

“And that was what was s’posed to happen to me,” he said flatly, removing his hand from her side. Panic slid down her throat like ice. “Then who the hell are you to make these kinda decisions for me? For all of us? Playin’ with us like puppets, an’ you’re smarter than the rest of us?”

“I’m not...Arthur, that’s not what I - ”

“But it is, ain’t it?” He sat up, clearly disgusted, swinging his legs over the side of the bed. “You  _ know _ what’s gonna happen ‘fore it does, so you play with us to make sure what you want to happen happens. No matter what the rest of us say or want, or where life’s meant to take us, you wanna play God.”

“I want you all to be  _ safe _ ,” she hissed, the tears spilling no matter how tight she squeezed her eyes. “I never meant to manipulate anybody, but how could I just stand by and let people die who don’t deserve to? Let people suffer and lose each other and…” She chewed her lip so hard she thought it might bleed. “Do you want me to tell you? You want to know how half of these people die, how it affects the rest of you? You wanna know who dies next, and how, and how it fucks up the people who love them?”

“ _ No _ ,” he murmured emphatically, and got his feet beneath him, sliding them back into his boots. “I need to...I need to think.”

“Arthur,  _ please _ .” She shot out of bed, tying the unfamiliar shoes as quickly as she could, following him to the hitching post where he was already mounting his horse. “Don’t - where are you going?”

“Away.” He almost couldn’t look at her, but when his baby blue eyes rolled over her, they were as hard and sharp as sea glass. “I need some...I need some time to myself.”

“Wait,” she said, pushing a hand against his horse’s neck, the great creature nickering under her touch. “I - if you don’t want to believe me, that’s fine, but...I’m not going to stop. You can tell everyone that I’m crazy, that I’m a liar, whatever you want, but...I still want to save everyone. I still want to keep the gang together and safe.”

She could see his jaw clench even from here, but when he slid his hat out of his pack and rested it on his head, he gave her a slight nod.

“I know,” was the last thing he’d say to her for a long while.

_ Day Forty-Nine: Valentine _

Before John left to rustle sheep outside Valentine, Darcy caught him by the sleeve, stopping him from his horse. She withered under his gaze as it flickered from her face down to her chest and back up - things with Abigail couldn’t be going particularly well, and she remembered an in-camp interaction where he’d tried things (very unsuccessfully) with Karen. But for now at least, he seemed to try to keep his eyes on hers.

“Miss Lewis.”

“John, I’m sorry, it’s just, uh...I’ve heard that Cornwall’s men have been hanging around Valentine, looking for Dutch. When you’re done with whatever you’re doing, just...be careful, okay?”

A thin smile lifted his lips, brightening even the scars on his face. “You don’t want me comin’ back in pieces, Miss Lewis?”

She gave him a pointed look. “Don’t get smart. I’m just...trying to look out for everybody.”

“This don’t have anything to do with...oh, I don’t know, maybe me sayin’ somethin’ nice about you to Arthur, does it?”

Her face went white hot; she genuinely hadn’t been expecting anything like that. Arthur returned to camp after she’d let him in on her secret, but he was avoiding her like the plague. She steered clear of his tent, electing to spend more time with Sadie and the rest of the girls, even trying to be nicer to Molly O’Shea, whether or not Molly bought it. “That’s your prerogative. I’m not gonna tell you what to do.”

When he finally stalked off, a bounce in his lanky step, there may have been a spark of unbridled hope in her stomach.

She spent the rest of the morning helping Jack make flower necklaces for his mother and all his aunts and uncles, waiting for the alarm to be raised that they needed to get the hell away from Valentine soon.

_ Day Fifty-Three: Clemens Point _

Arthur helped her load her things into the back of his wagon without a word. When she said thank you, quietly, so nobody else would hear, he gave a small nod, finally meeting her eyes for the first time in weeks.

_ Day Fifty-Seven: Rhodes _

Darcy insisted on riding into town after Arthur, Dutch, and Hosea were scheduled to meet with the Grays. Sadie and Karen volunteered to tag along, so the three of them took off with a few requests from the camp.

Gavin’s friend wandered along the path in front of the saloon, so Darcy dropped off fifty cents for him to buy himself a damn drink and get out of the heat for a little bit. Her next target was the gunsmith, to save the poor kid in the basement.

The gunsmith himself seemed a little shocked that she’d pulled a gun on him so quickly, but led her down to the basement anyway, blushing like he’d been caught with his hand in the cookie jar instead of literally kidnapping and enslaving a random human being. She shot the boy free as quickly as she could, and knelt by the gunsmith as he wept into his hands on the floor.

“Sir...I’m sorry your son’s gone, but you’ve gotta find a healthier way of dealing with death. You got any friends around here? Any...hobbies that don’t involve heavy weaponry?”

He sniffled, shaking his head, the fat of his cheeks the color of beets. “I ain’t the most popular feller around here. It - it’s hard for me, not thinkin’ about losin’ my boy, and most folk don’t want a sob story from the man sellin’ ‘em guns.”

A thought popped into her head. “Why don’t you close up shop for the day? There’s another guy over in the saloon, sounds like he’s lost somebody recently, too. Maybe if you buy him a drink you guys can...I don’t know...get to know each other. Have a friend who knows what it feels like to…” She shrugged. “...feel something like this. C’mon. First round’s on me.”

He trailed behind her out of the shop like a kicked puppy. They made it about halfway to the saloon before a familiar gold Turkoman trotted alongside her. “You made a friend already?” Sadie teased, smirking from her spot in the saddle.

“Just guiding one lonely soul to another. Where’s Karen?”

“At the saloon, probably startin’ up a fuss. You buyin’ drinks?”

“Sure. Come join us.”

This was not how she’d expected her day to progress, surrounded by four drunk friends at a table under a chandelier in the stifling southern heat. But she lifted her whiskey glass to the strange company she kept, and drank happily alongside them.

Gavin’s friend was actually called Nigel, and the gunsmith’s name was Francis, and as it turned out, they made excellent drinking buddies. The deeper they waded into their beer and whiskey, Nigel sang a few ditties from England, Francis a campfire song that he used to sing with his boy, and Karen taught them the verses of Ring Dang Doo.

By the time that half the bar had begun spouting the ridiculous song in drunken unison, a tall, blond someone had edged his way up to Darcy’s elbow.

“You know, I can’t help but think this has got somethin’ to do with you,” Arthur rumbled pleasantly from beside her, helping himself to a shot glass she’d had the misfortune to forget. She raised her eyes to him, flushing from a combination of the booze and his proximity.

“Doesn’t it always?” She wanted to ask what this meant, how they stood today.

He downed the shot, glancing sideways at her from under the brim of his hat. “You got Mrs. Adler out of her shell, I see.”

“Well, she was the mission. Karen didn’t need too much convincing.” Karen was wearing the blackjack dealer’s hat, dancing a romp with Francis around the blackjack table. “Surprised she didn’t send for Sean to rub this in his face. They seem to like makin’ each other jealous.”

“That they do.” His elbow came to rest on the bartop behind her, his forearm brushing against her back. “How you holdin’ on?”

“Okay.” She straightened up, lifting her beer to her lips. “You?”

“Alright.” He sniffed a little, closing in on her side as a couple of Lemoyne Raiders stalked past, eyeing him like hungry cats. “You was the one who kept John safe in Valentine, weren’t you?”

She shrugged. “I just told him to be careful. Didn’t want to...manipulate him or screw with his head or...how’d you describe it? Play with him like a puppet.”

He lowered his gaze to the floor in front of him, the line between his brows still as determined and on guard as it had been when the Raiders were walking by. “I still ain’t used to knowin’ all this about you. I don’t suspect I’ll  _ be _ used to it.” He inhaled deeply, and exhaled into the beer bottle the bartender had slid his way. “But I reckon...I talked to Hosea, and I know your heart’s in the right place. I didn’t tell him nothin’...but he sees you got a good heart, too.”

She could definitely picture Hosea grabbing Arthur by the ear, hammering in some lesson about Mary Linton and letting chances pass him by.

“I’m not going to be here forever, Arthur,” she warned him quietly, tapping her pinky against her own bottle. Somewhere in her head, she knew she was warning herself, too. “How does that sit with you?”

“Nor am I.” His hand had crept to the place where her waist curved into the swell of her skirt, a steady question mark in the hold of his fingers. “Nor’re any of us. But...I reckon I’ve wasted enough time that could’ve been spent with you.”

When Darcy kissed him this time, in front of Karen and Sadie and the English madman and the Southern kidnapper and the rest of Rhodes, she knew whatever little time they had left, she’d make the most of it.

**Author's Note:**

> Title lyrics from "Somewhere Only We Know" by Keane, because I'm a basic bitch.  
> Some artistic license taken with The Awakening; it probably wouldn't have made its way all the way to Strawberry a month after its publication, but I'm a slut for Kate Chopin, so that's what's going on. Hope you enjoyed!


End file.
